Holiday Marketing for the Small Tech Agency.. Start Now!
And Boom! The festive season is here again; Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Kwanza, Hanukkah and more. But have you analyzed your agency marketing strategies to ensure you reap the most this season? Which Channels have been working incredibly well for you? On which platforms have you managed to create the biggest buzz? These are all questions any serious web agency will need to answer… and the timing is now.
We are entering the festive months of the year when (arguably) agencies have the chance to make the largest chunks of their profits. You know why? Many businesses want to develop mobile promos, in-app purchases, and maybe even microsites or a brand new app for their own holiday campaigns. See how the cycle circulates?
Agencies can benefit from the festive season in a slightly different way than companies like Macy’s, BestBuy, tangible or digital products do it. Whether it be email marketing techniques, special promo codes in your latest newsletter, or a special "CEO note" to your loyal customers reflecting on 2014. Small things DO go a long way..
CAUTION: Whatever strategy you choose to adopt to engage with your clients and to win new ones, you have to be genuine. More than any other time of the year, the festive season is a time when people crowd together – so, one unhappy client will get the word out to 100+, not the usual 16 more.
Holiday marketing can be a bit worry-some given the stiff completion your agency needs to keep up with especially when you’re selling services. We understand that you are always busy and for that reason, we have done the homework and prepared for you the top strategies, tricks and holiday marketing tips your agency should start implementing now.
Partner with your favorite charity/altruistic marketing
Holidays are normally a great time to launch your charitable activities. Take photos and upload them to your agency’s Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook albums. Ideas? Take photos of your workers participating in charitable events, and utilize your website and social media pages to share them. Your employees will appreciate the opportunity to engage in those activities, and your clients will appreciate your contribution. In addition to showcasing your agency as being social responsible and attracting clients, engaging in charitable activities can help you attract top notch talents. Plus it doesn’t hurt to build an even stronger community on your social channels. It shows you are altruistic.
Do not forget your loyal clients- make them repurchase or upsell support.
Note that loyal clients cost you less on each purchase than newly won clients. Yes we’re talking cost per acquisition both on and offline. Repurchases and upselling support plans are impressively higher. In fact LOTS of businesses also want to take advantage of the holiday season and might want microsites developed of mobile discounts developed in the OS… this is your calling.
Award your loyal clients with branded marketing items, but don’t be too selly. Alternatively, create a group lobby and take some candid shots of people behind your brand and share these with your clients – may be in a CEO note or Christmas newsletter. Share it to your email generated network. You can also include photos of your client’s appreciation event if you hold any, or any other photos you may have taken during a visit to a client's business.
Invest more in social interaction
A report by Facebook tells that social media interaction increase by 47% during the festive season. Here is how you should go about it
Deck the pages: Change your profile picture and cover image to reflect the season. It’s a great way to personalize your brand and to get your visitors thinking about the holiday and your brand. Also is a chance to offer a promo code but this really depends on how selly you want to appear to your clients and hot leads. Halloween is coming up first, so start preparing for a cover or sharable image with a special hashtag. #HalloweenFun
Do you have an internal in-house made app? Most agencies do. Create a contest for it. A sweepstake contest is easy to enter, and is mostly the best for digital agencies that are also selling apps. Users are more likely to share sweepstakes particularly during holidays. Ideally, use an app with an impressive refer-a-friend-feature and ensure your followers get a free entry every time they share. People are less likely to share if they think doing so dilutes their chances of winning. So, make it a win-win situation and your campaign will soon be echoing from the mountains.
Tailor ad/online campaigns: Tailor your campaigns to the coming festive season other than just doing a blanket holiday message. People are ready to spend, but there is also a lot of competition for the dollars. It’s time to stand out. It ALSO helps your holiday search and SEM i.e “Holiday discounts” or “development discounts.” If you don’t have the time to launch a festive season-specific campaign, why not offer a business consultation to anyone who likes your page anytime during this festive season?
Sell Mobile Marketing campaigns to clients during the festive Season.
About 30% of the traffic to a website now comes via mobile devices. And during this festive season, you can reasonably expect this traffic to go up. Your clients want to take advantage of this number, and so do you. Leverage these tips into your holiday marketing campaigns (especially if you build for mobile at your agency.)
Has your business optimized for mobile commerce this season, and is you site load speed good?
Need a microsite or creative gaming app to help sell your product in time for the holiday season?
Have you optimized for local searches? Get Holiday SEM for your business and work with the content in your site.
What operating systems is your business presence on? Research tells that iOS users have more incomes compared to their android counterparts. Come to us for your iOS app.
(For online ad agencies) DayParting: Research tells that during the festive season, tablet and smartphone searches are normally high at nights and weekends. As such, run campaigns at those times.
Forge strategic combinations with others in your industry
It’s possible that most of the agencies in your industry also rely on getting a good chunk of their profit during the holiday season. For instance, forge an agreement with a web agency that offers complementary services and promote each other with an abundance of developers and designers to get the difficult job done faster. For instance, clients are likely to buy an antivirus if it's recommended by apple for their devices than when the same antivirus is marketed by its developer. Similarly, an apple device marketed by Avast as the most secure is likely to see more sale than when the same device is marketed by Apple only.
Email
Research tells that 49% of emails are opened and read on mobile gadgets during the festive season, but only 33% of web agencies send email with links back to their business to mobile landing pages. I hope you can see the opportunity in this technique. Further, 71% of online shoppers tell that emails influence their purchase decisions, and 55% of online marketers agree to using emails as their first holiday marketing tip. Yes these stats are more accurate to ecommerce sites and stores with tangible products than agencies themselves, but if you are looking for a starting point, this is it. Imagine the possibilities.
What strategies have you been utilizing in your holiday marketing campaigns? We’d love to hear from you. Tweet at us or shoot me an email at [email protected]!
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7 Key Questions to Ask Your Prospective Tech Agency
From the moment you decide to move forward with your mobile or web application idea, you’re faced with a tough question:
Should you build the product in-house, or hire an external team (tech agency)?
You want to to build your product in the easiest and most cost efficient way, but It can be exhausting and costly to build an in-house team and it wastes valuable time. If you hire a tech agency, you can have a full, experienced team at your service—ready to create a great digital product for your business. To view our Slideshare version of this blog, click here.
After careful consideration, you decide your best option is to hire a tech agency to build your product. Now it’s time to find and pick the right tech agency. There are thousands of tech agencies out there, so you have a ton of options. This can be a confusing, overwhelming process. Many people are in the dark about what it actually takes to build a mobile or web application. It’s like trying to order a drink for the first time in a foreign country (or a Starbucks, for that matter!).
But if you ask the right questions, you can quickly narrow down your choices and find the best tech agency for your business.
View the Slideshare below, or keep reading on, to discover 7 questions you should be asking your tech agency.
7 Key Questions to Ask Your Prospective Tech Agency from Koombea
When talking to prospective tech agencies, use these 7 questions to filter your options:
How do you communicate with clients?
Surprisingly, this is the most important question you’ll ask your prospective tech agencies. If the tech agency can’t update you about the status of the project, no amount of coding skills with matter.
What to look for: The tech agency should have an established process for communicating with clients. Transparent communication is essential to execute your vision. Do they use Basecamp, InvisionApp, or Trello for project collaboration? Are they available on Skype during working hours and will respond to you immediately?
They should be able to communicate clearly and patiently, without loads of tech jargon. Aside from their actual process of communication, also be aware of your instinctual like or dislike of the person/tech agency. If there’s a good, basic level of interaction, you’ll be able to work through misunderstandings easier.
Do you have any case studies of past clients?
A great tech agency won’t ask you to ‘take their word for it’. They’ll have plenty of successful case studies to back up their claims. You won’t have to guess about the quality and scope of work they’ve done.
What to look for: Ideally, the tech agency will list their case studies or portfolio on their website, so you can easily access it. That way, you can check out similar apps, test them out, and see how they perform. Or a Sales rep will be able to put together a one pager of examples for your industry.
Consider it a bonus if they have experience in your industry—however, don’t make this the deciding factor.
What is your estimated timeline for finishing the project?
Mobile and web applications are known to take longer and become more complicated than planned. That’s because small, incremental changes can build up into a mountain of additional work. And this additional work can cost you many thousands of dollars in the end.
What to look for: These additional costs can be prevented—or, at least, controlled to a point. Your tech agency should keep up-to-date schedules and specifications. Make sure the tech agency can articulate the repercussions of an additional ask. You may crave an extra feature, but when you see how much it pushes the schedule back, you just might change your tune.
Most projects can be done in 2-4 month cycles. Having a development agency tell you it will take longer than a year, is taking their time and probably isn’t working with the most agile processes.
How long have you been in business?
There’s nothing wrong with choosing a tech agency in its early stages—every agency had to begin somewhere. However, it is a bit of a gamble. There’s no substitute for experience. Older tech agencies have already made most of their costly mistakes, and learned from them. They can create better applications for you because of it.
What to look for: Ideally, your tech agency will have at least 5 years of experience. They’ve been steadily building, and have a track record of success. Here at Koombea, we pride ourselves in this area. With over 7 years of experience, we’ve clocked more hours than most agencies can imagine!
How many developers do you have?
The more developers they have, the more resources the tech agency can dedicate to your project. As we mentioned earlier, development projects are often extended beyond their original deadline. With a smaller company, this could mean that new projects can’t start on time.
What to look for: Your tech agency should have at least 6 developers. The more, the merrier. Having a developer working on a different project give his two sense, can help give key insight for the other. A bigger firm will have more people to draw on to solve technical problems.
What Development process do you use?
The Development process refers to how the application is built. Waterfall is the traditional development methodology. It’s a stage by stage approach for building products. While it can help with project and deadline control, it’s a practical impossibility to change the software if a glitch results. You’d have to go back to the beginning and develop new code all over again.
What to look for: Unlike Waterfall, Agile methodology cuts down the big picture into puzzle pieces. A tech agency who uses the Agile Development process can adapt to change at the end of each stage, without rewriting the entire application. At Koombea, we use Agile Development. Not only does it save costs, but it streamlines communication. We start the week with a planning meeting, and chat briefly each weekday afterward about the status of development. At the end of the week, we review all of the work delivered, and note anything we couldn’t finish. This week of work is called a sprint.
Will you build an MVP?
When it comes to product development, many business make the mistake of waiting too long to take the product to market. And because of this mistake, many products never even launch. Or, if they do launch, the market is already saturated with competitors…and the product usually fails. But you can avoid this costly mistake, and still launch a high-performing product in your niche.
The secret? A Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
What to look for: Your tech agency should build you a Minimum Viable Product. That way, you’ll have just enough of the core of your product so that you can get it to users and collect feedback—and start getting paid.
How’s your tech agency search going? Tweet us out or shoot us at email at [email protected]!
Koombea is happy to help you figure out which agency is best for you—even if it’s not us.
Should you build a product? Hire an external team, or do the project in-house?
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